Payments by brand-name drug companies to manufacturers of generic drugs to not produce their products cost consumers about $3.5 billion per year, said the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in a report released January 13 (http://www.ftc.gov/os/2010/01/100112payfordelayrpt.pdf).

The report, Pay-for-Delay: How Drug Company Pay-Offs Cost Consumers Billions, calls for Congress to pass legislation to protect consumers from such anticompetitive agreements. The report found that the number of agreements with payment and delay has increased from none in 2004 to 19 in fiscal year 2009.